Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth

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Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth Page 5

by Yusef Komunyakaa


  night. Since his buddy

  Awesome chickened out,

  he wonders if the picture

  in the Alte Pinakothek

  would have been easier.

  Now that he’s started,

  where does he stop,

  does he go to Coburg,

  Cracow, the Cathedral

  of Lucerne, Schwarzkopf

  in Riga, the cloth makers

  & dyers, the tomb of Archbishop

  Ernest at Magdeburg, where

  next? He hums a verse

  from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony,

  punching the air as if to break

  the saint’s armor. Well,

  his ex-girlfriend, Blanche,

  she would know what to do,

  how to calm him down

  when he begins to whimper

  & cut initials into his skin.

  LOVE IN THE TIME OF WAR

  The jawbone of an ass. A shank

  braided with shark teeth. A garrote.

  A shepherd’s sling. A jagged stone

  that catches light & makes warriors

  dance to a bull-roarer’s lamentation.

  An obsidian ax. A lion-skin drum

  & reed flute. A nightlong prayer

  to gods stopped at the mouth of a cave.

  The warrior-king summons one goddess

  after another to his bloodstained pallet.

  If these dear ones live inside his head

  they still dress his wounds with balms

  & sacred leaves, & kiss him

  back to strength, back to a boy.

  Gilgamesh’s Humbaba was a distant drum

  pulsing among the trees, a slave to the gods,

  a foreign tongue guarding the sacred cedars

  down to a pale grubworm in the tower

  before Babel. Invisible & otherworldly,

  he was naked in the king’s heart,

  & his cry turned flies into maggots

  & blood reddened the singing leaves.

  When Gilgamesh said Shiduri, a foreplay

  of light was on the statues going to the river

  between them & the blinding underworld.

  She cleansed his wounds & bandaged his eyes

  at the edge of reason, & made him forget

  birthright, the virgins in their bridal beds.

  It seems we all need something to kill

  for, to seek & claim, to treasure

  till it screams in elemental dark,

  to argue with the gods over—

  a delicacy or something forbidden—

  even if it’s only the sooty tern’s egg

  on Easter Island, as warriors swung ironwood clubs

  to topple clans of stony monoliths.

  Women danced around a canoe dripping the sap

  of the island’s last great tree. For the new ruler

  who found the season’s first egg, whose eyes

  reflected obsidian knives & spearheads,

  a maiden dressed in a garment of blossoms

  waited beneath a towering statue at dusk.

  Here, the old masters of Shock & Awe

  huddle in the war room, talking iron,

  fire & sand, alloy & nomenclature.

  Their hearts lag against the bowstring

  as they daydream of Odysseus’s bed.

  But to shoot an arrow through the bull’s-eye

  of twelve axes lined up in a row

  is to sleep with one’s eyes open. Yes,

  of course, there stands lovely Penelope

  like a trophy, still holding the brass key

  against her breast. How did the evening star

  fall into that room? Lost between plot

  & loot, the plucked string turns into a lyre

  humming praises & curses to the unborn.

  The Mameluke—slave & warrior—springs

  out of dust & chance, astride his horse

  at sunrise, one with its rage & gallop,

  wedded to its flanks & the sound of hooves

  striking clay & stone, carried into the sway

  of desert grass. His double-edged saber

  bloodies valleys & hills, a mirage,

  till he arrives at a gate of truth in myth:

  for a woman to conceive in this place & time,

  she must be in the arms of a warrior riding

  down through the bloody ages,

  over bones of the enemy in the sand

  & along the river in a sultan’s dream,

  till their child is born on horseback.

  Did a Byzantine general intone Ah!

  when he saw a volcano shoot flames up

  across hills? Is nature the master of war?

  Could a fissure become a stone syringe

  pluming liquid fire against an enemy? Hell

  was a beauteous glow made of naphtha,

  what the Babylonians called the thing

  that blazes—oil seeping out of the earth.

  If a woman heard the secrets of Greek fire

  in a soldier’s dream, he couldn’t save her.

  Only lilies dared to open their pale throats.

  After a turtledove spoke on her behalf,

  the executioner couldn’t believe how light

  his hands were, how heavy the ax was.

  My wide hips raised two warriors

  from sweat & clay, blood sonata

  & birth cry. I said anger & avarice,

  & they called themselves Cain & Abel.

  I said gold, & they opened up the earth.

  I said love, & they ventured east

  & west, south & north. I said evil,

  & they lost themselves in reflected rivers.

  After scrimmages across Asia Minor

  & guarding kingly ransom in the Horn of Africa,

  my sons journeyed home to peasant bread

  & salt meat, to whorish doubts & wonder,

  but when I flung my arms open at the threshold

  they came to me as unseasoned boys.

  They swarmed down over the town

  & left bodies floating in the ditches

  & moats. Bloated with silence,

  blue with flies on the rooftops.

  They gave the children candy

  made of honey & nuts, scented with belladonna

  to weed out the weak. Bundles of silk

  rolled out like a rainbow for the women.

  On the wild forgetful straw beds

  they created a race, a new tongue

  to sing occidental prayers & regrets.

  Their camphor lanterns mastered darkness.

  All the taboos of lovemaking were broken.

  Soon, laughter rose again from the fields.

  Now, she moves against him

  like salmon trying to swim upstream

  against the earth’s spin. The whole night

  trembles, the oldest sobs caught

  in their throats, a new skin of sweat.

  For him, his trek into the deep woods

  began days ago when the birds grew silent.

  They now pray a son hides inside her.

  But tomorrow—tomorrow, only the men

  will dance ancestors alive, gazing up at Venus,

  born to slay the enemy in their sleep.

  The high priest has blessed the weapons,

  & they cannot turn back. Not until

  a thousand hooves strike the dust red.

  The drummer’s hands were bloody.

  The players of billowy bagpipes

  marched straight into the unblinking

  muzzle flash. The fife player

  conjured a way to disappear

  inside himself: The bullets zinged

  overhead & raised dust devils

  around his feet. He crossed a river.

  Bloodstained reeds quivered in the dark.

  He rounded a hedgerow thick with blooms

  & thorns. Some lone, nameless bird

  fell in tune with hi
s fife, somewhere

  in the future, & he saw a blue nightgown

  fall to the floor of an eye-lit room.

  The matador hides the shiny sword

  behind his cape & bows to the bull.

  Silence kneels in the dung-scented dust.

  El toro charges. The matador’s quick

  two-step is perfecto, as the horns

  graze his shadow. He bows again

  to the minotaur. Where did the blade

  come from, how did it enter the heart?

  The flamenco dancer’s red skirt catches light

  & falls. She adores the levity of his hands

  & feet. Some beings steal sunrises

  from blood. He knows where the words

  come from, that line of García Lorca’s

  about eating the grasses of the cemeteries?

  Hand-to-hand: the two hugged each other

  into a naked tussle, one riding the other’s back,

  locked in a double embrace. One

  forced the other to kiss the ground,

  as he cursed & bit into an earlobe.

  They shook beads of dew off the grass.

  One worked his fingers into the black soil,

  & could feel a wing easing out of his scapula.

  That night, the lucky one who gripped

  a stone like Mercury weighing the planet

  in his palm, who knew windfall & downfall,

  he fell against his sweetheart again

  & again, as if holding that warrior in his arms,

  & couldn’t stop himself from rising off the earth.

  Two memories filled the cockpit.

  The pilot fingered the samurai swords

  beside him, as the plane banked & dove.

  Locked in a fire-spitting tailspin,

  headed toward the ship, he was one

  with the metal & speed, beyond oaths

  taken, nose-diving into the huddle

  of sailors below, into their thunder.

  The day opened like a geisha’s pearl fan.

  The yellow kimono of his first & last woman

  withered into a tangle of cherry blossoms

  & breathy silk. A sigh leapt out of his throat.

  Before he climbed up into the cockpit

  he left a shadow to guard her nights.

  Another column of soldiers crosses

  the two rivers of flesh & idiom,

  time & legacy. An echo of cries

  reaches deep into the interior.

  Weeks. Months. How many years

  of candlepower did it take to journey

  from wooden catapult to predator drone

  speeding across cerulean sky like sperm?

  How many ghosts hide in Liberty’s mirror,

  how many are released as she strolls

  along these deliberate avenues? Oh,

  those broken vows & treaties that swear

  the only excuse for pig iron & smallpox

  is the goodness of gold in the hard earth.

  Tribe. Clan. Valley & riverbank. Country. Continent. Interstellar

  aborigines. Squad. Platoon. Company. Battalion. Regiment. Hive

  & swarm. Colony. Legend. Laws. Ordinances. Statutes. Grid

  coordinates. Maps. Longitude. Latitude. Property lines drawn

  in unconsecrated dust. Sextant & compass. Ledger. Loyalty

  oath. Therefore. Hereinbefore. Esprit de corps. Lock & load.

  Bull’s-eye. Maggie’s drawers. Little Boy. Fat Man. Circle

  in the eye. Bayonet. Skull & Bone. Them. Body count. Thou

  & I. Us. Honey. Darling. Sweetheart, was I talking war in my sleep

  again? Come closer. Yes, place your head against my chest.

  The moon on a windowsill. I want to stitch up all your wounds

  with kisses, but I also know that sometimes the seed is hurting

  for red in the soil. Sometimes. Sometimes I hold you like Achilles’

  shield, your mouth on mine, my trembling inside your heart & sex.

  When our hands caress bullets & grenades,

  or linger on the turrets & luminous wings

  of reconnaissance planes, we leave glimpses

  of ourselves on the polished hardness.

  We surrender skin, hair, sweat, & fingerprints.

  The assembly lines hum to our touch,

  & the grinding wheels record our laments

  & laughter into the bright metal.

  I touch your face, your breasts, the flower

  holding a world in focus. We give ourselves

  to each other, letting the workday slide

  away. Afterwards, lying there facing the sky,

  I touch the crescent-shaped war wound. Yes,

  the oldest prayer is still in my fingertips.

  A curtain of fire hangs in the west.

  The big gun speaks. Speaks

  as if all the gods are cursing at once.

  Another timber kneels in the dirt.

  I sit at this blue window

  entranced by Van Gogh’s night sky

  burning, as beautiful insanities

  skirt the worm-riddled trenches.

  The slightest lull beckons GIs

  to our doors. Oh, yes, the horses

  I’ve broken in each lonesome body.

  I’m the wave ridden beyond chance.

  He falls asleep. I whisper into his ear,

  & he tells me every signal & secret code.

  A marine writes the name of his sweetheart,

  carefully printing each letter

  as if to make the dead read

  the future’s blank testaments.

  He straddles the fan-tailed bomb

  & scribbles a note to al-Qaeda:

  This is a fat prick for you sand niggers.

  This is a cauldron of falling stars.

  Months tick down to a naked sigh.

  The marine reads again the Dear John

  to bring kisses to life on smudged paper.

  Her skin is now a lost map. Each page

  is a bloody memory facing itself,

  seeping through a white dress.

  A bottle-nosed dolphin swims midnight water

  with plastic explosives strapped to her body.

  A black clock ticks in her half-lit brain.

  Brighter than some water-headed boy

  in a dream, she calls from the depths. The voice

  of her trainer, a Navy SEAL, becomes a radio wave

  guiding her to the target. One eye is asleep

  & the other is the bright side of the moon.

  The trainer & his wife sway to the rise & fall

  of their waterbed, locked in each other’s arms.

  They’re taken down into a breathless country

  where Neptune wrestles the first & last siren,

  to where a shadow from that other world

  torpedoes along like a fat, long bullet.

  Now you’re home, Johnny Boy,

  holding me in your arms, I can say

  my own peace. How could you lie

  to yourself? Democracy & freedom

  overseas, my foot. Hanging white fire

  & roadside bombs. I still remember

  that Saturday you kicked a vet’s tin cup

  on the corner of Tenth & Avenue A.

  Johnny Boy, your kisses may x-through

  other names, but I haven’t forgotten the night

  you were wearing your dress blues & said,

  Ladies, line up for this uniform. Your hands

  have almost stolen my breath, but I know

  a suburban sunset could never heal your red horizon.

  Tonight, the old hard work of love

  has given up. I can’t unbutton promises

  or sing secrets into your left ear

  tuned to quivering plucked strings.

  No, please. I can’t face the reflection

  of metal on your skin & in your eyes,

  can’t risk weav
ing new breath into war fog.

  The anger of the trees is rooted in the soil.

  Let me drink in your newly found river

  of sighs, your way with incantations.

  Let me see if I can’t string this guitar

  & take down your effigy of moonlight

  from the cross, the dogwood in bloom

  printed on memory’s see-through cloth.

  A throng of boy soldiers dance

  the highlife on a dusty back road

  dressed as women, lost in cocaine

  happiness, firing Kalashnikovs.

  The skinny dogs can smell death

  in the twilit alleys. The women

  & girls disappear when weaverbirds

  desert the tall grandfather trees.

  After fetishes are questioned, the guns

  run amok. Ghosts patrol the perimeter

  & night tries to mend broken rooms.

  The women & girls return to the village

  with a rebel army hiding inside them.

  The gods climb higher into the trees.

  I am Abeer Quassim Hamza al-Janabi.

  I am one thousand years old.

  Once, a long time ago, the Tigris

  flowed through me as I gazed up at the sky.

  The eyes of the soldiers made me look

  at the ground. They followed me in sleep,

  hungry dust-birds calling. Now, I am ash,

  a bundle of the night’s jasmine blossoms

  & beliefs. There’s a pain inside of me,

  but I don’t know where. When soldiers

  knocked on the door, our house broke

  into pieces. There were a thousand dreams

  inside me. They tried to burn the evidence,

  but I’ll always—always be almost fifteen.

  Someone’s beating a prisoner.

  Someone’s counting red leaves

  falling outside a clouded window

  in a secret country. Someone

  holds back a river, but the next rabbit jab

  makes him piss on the stone floor.

  The interrogator orders the man

  to dig his grave with a teaspoon.

  The one he loves, her name

  died last night on his tongue.

  To revive it, to take his mind off

  the electric wire, he almost said,

  There’s a parrot in a blue house

  that knows the password, a woman’s name.

  His name is called. A son’s lost voice

  hovers near a fishing hole in August.

  His name is called. A lover’s hand

  disturbs a breath of summer cloth.

 

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